


You Can’t Control a Ripple

by SkepticalPony



Category: Avengers (Comics), Iron Man (Comic), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 03:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10630803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkepticalPony/pseuds/SkepticalPony
Summary: Tony copes with Steve's death and with the visions of better realities.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [You Can’t Control a Ripple [Traducción]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10640979) by [Brandeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brandeau/pseuds/Brandeau), [SkepticalPony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkepticalPony/pseuds/SkepticalPony)



> This is a following to "What If: Civil War #1". You don't need to read the comic for understand it, but you probably gonna need a little bit of context. Here two links that can help:
> 
> http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/What_If%3F_Civil_War_Vol_1_1  
> http://iures.tumblr.com/post/28549239346/rogers-and-stark-notrobinhood-vision-of
> 
> Thanks a lot to my beta, Brandeau. I'm not a native speaker, so he helped a lot with my english <3

Dark skies. Pouring rain. Not a soul on the streets, but him. Almost like on a freaking song. Or in those existentialist movies that Rumiko loved so much.  

“Was it worth it?”, Steve had asked. It wasn't. If Tony had known... God, if he had known what the price was...

He knows that he should stop thinking about it. He needs to shut his brain off. He needs to focus on the tasks at hand. In SHIELD. In Carol, Pepper, and all the people that are still alive and counting on him. He knows it. He knows it.

But Steve...

Tony had been ready to lose everything. He could live with being hated. He could live knowing that he had made a compromise. Knowing that he had chosen the lesser of two evils and traded everything that he believed in for a pragmatic solution. He wasn't gonna drag Steve into that shit, but he could do it for everyone else. Everything sounded so simple. He was aware he would be destroying his friendship with Cap forever. However, Peter was a surprise... But that still wasn't a price he could regret paying, to be honest.

Nevertheless, when that bullet hit Steve... He wasn't ready for that. Captain America. Steve Rogers. One of his best friends. They had known each other for almost their entire adult lives and yet Tony still didn't have a clue of what to say to reach Steve, to convince him that he had a valid reason, that there were worst alternatives than this.

The stranger had showed him what he could have said. Knowing this should make it easier, knowing that it had been his fault, that Steve hadn’t trusted him enough only because Tony hadn’t said the right thing. He had kept his feelings hidden, like he always did, and now he is facing the consequences.

You can cause ripples...

And so he did.

Was it worth it?

Not even for a second. But "that is what life is", like the stranger had said.  
Now there's only learning to move forward. Even when Tony has no idea how to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate comments and criticism, anything that can help me to improve :) Thanks for reading <3


End file.
